We could tell it was coming for nearly an hour ahead. The air shifted, got heavier and sweeter. Wind picked up—you could smell the rain in the air. Then a crack or two of lightning, and few drops here and there and then it came. Rain: cool refreshing rain, a shower, a cleansing, a baptism. Barefoot, but otherwise fully clothed, we did what we first saw our colleagues do when we arrived here seven years ago. We stood in the rain. We drank it up. We even danced a little bit.
Melodramatic, I admit. But you have to realize that apart from the occasional sprinkle—very infrequent, VERY light—we have not had rain here since last September. Unlike the parts of North America we’ve lived in, where precipitation in some form or another can be expected any time of year, and unlike the other part of Africa we’ve called home—Tanzania—where “rainy season” meant a steady downpour for up to many hours nearly every day, here in Senegal, we have the season when it MIGHT rain and the season when it WON’T. As of yesterday, we've left the latter and entered into the former.
Dust that has been building up for the better part of nine months is now tamped down a bit. Roads that have been swallowing non-4x4s in their endlessly deep sand now are actually passable. Most of the screens on our windows have had a layer of dirt removed.
Sure, much of the dust and dirt came INTO the house, especially in our interior courtyard where we have a screen roof. And, yes, just a few more showers will make certain roads impassable again, this time because of puddles that turn into lakes. And the same rain that tamped down the dust has left a stifling humidity in its wake.
Without a doubt, we’ll complain about all of that soon enough. The blessing that rain is for the vast majority of rural Senegal can be at best mixed, if no blessing at all for those of us living in the crowded and flood-prone capital, Dakar. Power cuts will certainly increase, as more people need to use more fans and air conditioners more of the time.
But for today, we’ll welcome the rain. We dance in the coolness it brings, if only for fleeting moments. We’ll appreciate the newness and freshness it represents.
Peace,
Peter
